More than 7,000 volunteers haul 123 tons of trash off Texas beaches

AUSTIN — The 25th Annual Texas General Land Office Adopt-A-Beach Spring Cleanup drew more than 7,000 volunteers to the Texas coast Saturday.

"No one can top our Adopt-A-Beach volunteers," said Jerry Patterson, Commissioner of the General Land Office. "In one day, they swarmed over 150 miles of beach and removed more than 123 tons of trash - that's an enormous effort."

Most of the trash found consisted of typical items left by beachgoers: cigarette butts, soda cans, beer bottles and beach toys. This mix of trash has changed over the years that Adopt-A-Beach volunteers have walked the beaches.

Among the more interesting items volunteers found were a bottle of tattoo ink in Kleberg County; a surfboard and a pair of dentures in Galveston; political campaign signs, drug paraphernalia and "Don't Mess With Texas" plastic cups in Harris County; a frying pan with eggs still in it in Boca Chica; a vial of morphine in Port Aransas; and numerous toilet seats and pairs of underwear at beaches across the state.

When the program started in 1986, the bulk of trash on Texas beaches washed ashore from international ships that simply dumped it overboard. Since then, data collected by Adopt-A-Beach volunteers has helped to pass an international shipping treaty that bans such sloppy practices and requires all oceangoing vessels to dispose of their trash responsibly while in port.

The Adopt-A-Beach program is one of the most successful all-volunteer efforts in the nation. In the past 25 years, 413,000 Adopt-A-Beach volunteers have picked up more than 8,000 tons of trash from the Texas Gulf Coast. And thanks to a generous $50,000 donation by Shell Oil Company and Motiva Enterprises LLC, Adopt-A-Beach will celebrate its 25th anniversary by reaching out to even more beach lovers.

Shell Oil Company and Motiva Enterprises LLC are the lead sponsors for the 25th Anniversary celebration of Adopt-A-Beach. Other sponsors include HNTB Corporation, AkzoNobel Surface Chemistry LLC, Flint Hills Resources Community Action Council, the Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund, the Newfield Foundation and Keep Texas Beautiful.

To learn more about items collected at the cleanup, and for information on the health of the Texas coast, visit the Adopt-A-Beach program website at www.texasadoptabeach.org, or contact the Texas General Land Office at 1-877-TXCOAST (1-877-892-6278).